Thursday, July 1, 2010

Eclipse OWNS The Last Airbender

After seeing both Twilight Saga: Eclipse and The Last Airbender on the day of their openings, I’ve got to say that I really, really enjoyed one over the other and I’m surprised which one it was.

I’m not a big fan of Twilight. I don’t dislike it, but I’m not much of a chick who likes romance flicks unless they’re really funny. I can watch them, but I don’t have much of a desire for it. The first Twilight was rushed while New Moon felt long in some parts. I wasn’t sure how Eclipse was gonna play out, even though the previews were pretty sweet. The truth was that I really enjoyed the film. It wasn’t my favorite film of the year, but so far it’s my favorite of the summer. There was more action, the pace was good, and it was really humorous. Though I don’t really buy Taylor Lautner’s angry face all the time, I really enjoy his chemistry with Robert Pattison and their rivalry for Bella’s affection. I liked that more of the characters lives were explained and it went outside of the love triangle by explaining Rosalie’s and Jasper’s past, which is something the first Twilight film failed at big time.

To some people, saying that Eclipse was the best Twilight film isn’t enough, because they don’t care or like the first two. I’m gonna go out on a limb and admit that I liked it. I recommend not seeing it with a theater filled with little kids but an actual young adult crowd and feed off of the energy they invoke. I had a really nice movie experience.

I thought The Last Airbender was going to be the best movie of the year, when in reality it was probably the biggest disappointment in my movie watching career. Ever. It was a movie that was basically easy to make. The story is so solid that you really don’t have to adopt it, just make it real life. The source material is great. It’s not like Dragonball Z when there’s so much crazy stuff like talking animals and villains that turn people into food and eats them. Avatar was a great and sensible cartoon. I can’t believe how badly it was messed up.

Since I’ve made a video for a Twilight review and will do one on Last Airbender, I won’t go too in depth right now as far as what was wrong in comparison with the cartoon and film, but I will say it was really rushed, some of the shots didn’t compliment the scene sometimes, the pronunciations of the names were ridiculous, and the actors did terrible jobs. They weren’t the characters. Most of them had no real personalities because there was no character developments.

I thought Last Airbender would be able to draw children and happy parents, but the film changed some things about the story that actually made it cheesier. I strongly think only small, as in very young fans of the show will like the movie. Just about anyone older than ten will probably be able to spot the changes and see how it damaged the plot.

I also thought Eclipse might have been a bit darker for a younger audience, but it really wasn’t dark at all, so Eclipse easily translates to a much larger audience.

Eclipse ended up opening up just a little shy of New Moon’s opening gross, but it’s still the second highest opening day grosses ever. Last Airbender is being trashed by fans and critics a lot, so while it might stand to do well, it’ll barely be what Paramount expected.

The moral of the story? Twilight wins. It was more hype than an actual fight.